The Schoolmaster eBook

And for the first time in her ten years of practice
a doubt creeps into Marfa Petrovna’s mind. .
. . She summons the other patients, and while
talking to them of their complaints notices what has
hitherto slipped by her ears unnoticed. The patients,
every one of them as though they were in a conspiracy,
first belaud her for their miraculous cure, go into
raptures over her medical skill, and abuse allopath
doctors, then when she is flushed with excitement,
begin holding forth on their needs. One asks
for a bit of land to plough, another for wood, a third
for permission to shoot in her forests, and so on.
She looks at the broad, benevolent countenance of Father
Aristark who has revealed the truth to her, and a new
truth begins gnawing at her heart. An evil oppressive
truth. . . .

The deceitfulness of man!

IN THE GRAVEYARD

“THE wind has got up, friends, and it is beginning
to get dark. Hadn’t we better take ourselves
off before it gets worse?”

The wind was frolicking among the yellow leaves of
the old birch trees, and a shower of thick drops fell
upon us from the leaves. One of our party slipped
on the clayey soil, and clutched at a big grey cross
to save himself from falling.

“Yegor Gryaznorukov, titular councillor and
cavalier . .” he read. “I knew that
gentleman. He was fond of his wife, he wore the
Stanislav ribbon, and read nothing. . . . His
digestion worked well . . . . life was all right,
wasn’t it? One would have thought he had
no reason to die, but alas! fate had its eye on him.
. . . The poor fellow fell a victim to his habits
of observation. On one occasion, when he was
listening at a keyhole, he got such a bang on the head
from the door that he sustained concussion of the brain
(he had a brain), and died. And here, under this
tombstone, lies a man who from his cradle detested
verses and epigrams. . . . As though to mock
him his whole tombstone is adorned with verses. . .
. There is someone coming!”

A man in a shabby overcoat, with a shaven, bluish-crimson
countenance, overtook us. He had a bottle under
his arm and a parcel of sausage was sticking out of
his pocket.

“Where is the grave of Mushkin, the actor?”
he asked us in a husky voice.

We conducted him towards the grave of Mushkin, the
actor, who had died two years before.

“You are a government clerk, I suppose?”
we asked him.

“No, an actor. Nowadays it is difficult
to distinguish actors from clerks of the Consistory.
No doubt you have noticed that. . . . That’s
typical, but it’s not very flattering for the
government clerk.”

It was with difficulty that we found the actor’s
grave. It had sunken, was overgrown with weeds,
and had lost all appearance of a grave. A cheap,
little cross that had begun to rot, and was covered
with green moss blackened by the frost, had an air
of aged dejection and looked, as it were, ailing.